Iron Man 3 Director to Helm Adaptation of The Destroyer

Iron Man 3's Shane Black will direct an adaptation of the adventure series The Destroyer, originally written by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir. The film will be written by Fight Club's Jim Uhls and James Mullaney, who wrote several of the more recent novels in the long-running series.

"Shane has been a fan of the original 'Destroyer' book series since its inception and he has an incredible vision for this film," said producer Charles Roven. "Atlas couldn't be more fortunate to be working with this talented director on this material. The narrative Jim and James have created is incredibly rich and while it's a story rooted in adventure, it is also very much character driven."

Michael de Luca, president of production at Columbia Pictures, stated, "The Destroyer is a two-fisted classic and deserves no less than the genius of Shane Black. We couldn't be more excited about his vision for this character."

The Destroyer follows Remo Williams, a wrongly accused police officer who is resuscitated after a botched execution. The government fakes his death and trains him to be an assassin for a black ops organization called CURE, supposedly founded by President Kennedy. Williams is distinctive for his disdain of weapons, after a formative experience in which he killed a gunman with his bare hands. He fights many different types of villains, including mobsters, mad scientists, and satirical caricatures of historical figures. He also fights cyborgs, androids humans with superpowers such as pyrokinesis, and a genetically engineered weretiger.

In addition to this film, Black has also recently signed on to a Predator reboot, Doc Savage, and the Ryan Gosling vehicle Nice Guys.